Thinking out of the box

If you’re gonna leave corporate, you’re gonna need to work on your imagination.

Every kind of institution prioritizes standardization because it builds efficiency. And standardization is perfect for making things flow smoothly when you have an established process you want to streamline. It’s awful for those times you need to innovate and adapt.

Innovation is messy. It requires a LOT of failure, and it’s not possible to promise good outcomes when you’re experimenting. That’s bad news for shareholders that just want to get their dime and get out.

Even though the skill of thinking outside the corporate box has been virtually trained out of you, if you have a brain, you have an imagination. Imagine yourself writing an email to your boss in which you politely and triumphantly say “I’ve had enough of this hellhole. See ya never.” Can you see it?

Or, maybe what feels closer to home is to imagine getting a ping from them that says “Hey, got a minute to talk?” And then a short Zoom call when they tell you that the company failed to meet its performance goals and “Sorry, but we’ve got to let you go.” And then you can’t log on anymore to say goodbye to your colleagues.

In corporate, “out of the box” thinking is more like coming up with solutions that are acceptable within the current framework your company’s operating in. But in actuality, thinking out of the box is the skill of dreaming of every possibility that gets you to your end goal. That means, anything and everything is fair play until you’ve got your strategy all lined up.

So let’s do a little test. What are all the ways you can leave your job without feeling like you just stepped out of a plane without a parachute?

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If it feels like a miracle has to shoot out of the sky to make it happen, then you’re on the right track. 😆 All you have to do from here is refine and refine until you get to the plan that feels doable. Then take the action until you get what you’re aiming for.

Oh, I know it sounds so simple when I say it like that lol. But it really and truly is.